


New Americana

by StrangeBint



Category: American Gods (TV), American Gods - Neil Gaiman, Angel: the Series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV), Dollhouse
Genre: Adulthood, Aged-Up Character(s), American Gods Inspired, Background Relationships, Class Issues, Dirty Talk, F/M, Gods, Other, POV Faith Lehane, Plot Twists, Post-Episode: s05e22 Not Fade Away, Post-Episode: s07e22 Chosen, Power Dynamics, Secret Identity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-13
Updated: 2020-07-13
Packaged: 2021-03-05 04:20:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,458
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25238356
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StrangeBint/pseuds/StrangeBint
Summary: Faith finds herself on island at a private party for the one percent. There's no demon more dangerous than a "Nice Guy" who just wants to save you and everything else in the world. Her former client is Holtz is one and something else. Faith knows she has to find him and kill him. Before she can do that a she meets a charming old dude who convinces her to have a drink and tell her story. Faith knows he's not a "Nice Guy." He's the reason women go for assholes.
Relationships: Connor (AtS)/Faith Lehane, Faith Lehane & Mr. Wednesday, Faith Lehane/Other(s), Shadow Moon & Mr. Wednesday (American Gods)
Kudos: 2





	New Americana

It was a kiss from a woman.

That was what woke Faith Lehane from her Dollhouse mind-wipe, or whatever it was _he_ did to her.

She just knew the chick freed her from being the meal-mouthed wifey, Natalie. It was a blown kiss. It had taken flight in the form of a cartoon smile/heart emoji. When it fluttered through the private island’s salty nigh air and landed on Faith’s cheek her Stepford wife week was over.

The woman who “blew” her (a kiss) was a caterer in a black and white uniform. She was just a worker bee, like Faith, at this summer night soiree here at the Maxwell-Brush’s private island estate. The woman had blue eye shadow that sparkled in golden piazza’s lights. She winked and walked away with her caterer’s tray. Faith was grateful. But, Faith had no time to wonder about the caterer or what witchery the cartoon emoji kiss was.

She had a justifiable homicide to make happen. Faith’s last real memories were of being bloody and freezing. The island was overcast. Now it was a starry night. A live orchestra band played a cover of Wrecking Ball under Japanese lanterns. She strode through the “casual dress soiree” for the 1% of the 1% in ballet flats because _he_ didn’t like heels.

She was now hunting him. Who was he? Faith knew her prey. Like any monster or victim his identity was slippery. He was Steven Holtz aka The Destroyer, a suburban white boy “Nice Guy” from nowhere California aka the hacker of the moment aka Faith’s fake-ass loving husband aka her actual client two days before who brought her here and fucked her as she pretended to be his loving girlfriend.

That’s right. If you can’t beat em’ join em’. Faith knew the only way a girl could get on this island, and not be related to the Maxwell’s was to be a hard worker. Faith saw it as doing what any “mother” would do. She became a working girl so no more of her girls would ever have to.

So, yeah, Faith had been The Destroyer’s whore, his call girl, and that still wasn’t enough. Of course he would “never normally do this sort of thing” he wanted her to know he didn’t “expect anything.” He was a “nice guy.” Faith knew once a guy self proclaimed he was nice that was when the match was set, and usually it was the chick who was getting burned. She had known that since she was seventeen.

That was why she had chocked out Xander Harris and why she had fucked him quick beforehand. Faith would love to say that was one of the things her jaded young self had been wrong about. But, if Faith wanted proof herself wrong she couldn’t exactly call up Anya What-her-name or Cordelia Chase to talk about how well “giving a Nice Guy a chance” went.

She didn’t need to call Dawn Summers either. Faith had Instagram. She knew Dawn was re-married and her non-binary kid was an artistic genius.

_So_ , _Why don’t women like nice guys?_

Faith thought she had schooled little Stevie on that while all the hackers watched. Maybe she had, and that was why she was a living example of why women should never trust nice guys. Why they were the worst kind of demon. No matter what you gave them all they ever really wanted was for you to become someone else for them. Then they left you anyway. But, he had taken it to some new level.

In Faith’s last own memories she had been winning the fight when he cheated and used some hidden X-men shit. What was she supposed to do? Faith had looked down at her dangling bare feet. A drop of blood rolled off her freezing body and fell fifty feet to the sand below. Hi _s_ arms had gripped her like a vice. “ _You know up high and deep down you want the fairytale. All you have to do is go to sleep and I’ll give you everything you really want. I am a Nice Guy, sweet pea.”_

They had a disagreement about names early on in the deal and it led to a game of calling each other names of nasty biting flowers.

_“Shit. If you’re gonna betray me, betray me but don’t be a Nice Guy, snap dragon. I guess I might as well tell you the real reason women hate them is they suck in bed.”_

At least she got in one witty retort. Then had to make her someone else. But what all the hacker “nice guys” watching didn’t know what that they may be the new gods she was the oldest living Slayer.

Faith looked up at the 1100 foot six bedroom mansion and knew the room that was up and to the left was when she had really gave up the fight before any blood spilled. The fluids involved there weren’t blood. They were a salty, sticky, entangled business of pleasure memories. Faith knew what eyes had seen, but she couldn’t be sure what ears had heard. She had always been good at controlling what people saw of her, which was never the “real” her. Faith knew she left her real self in what was heard. Often it was what other people said, and what she didn’t say back but did.

_Did ‘they’ fuck you fast and hard… like this?”_ Behind closed doors Holtz stopped being a funny geek-boy moved like a creature who had no bones.

_No. I think that’s what you expected. I think that’s what you learned to like. I think they got you because they fucked you deep and slow… like this._

Behind closed doors Holtz stopped the stupid boy questions and gave answers. He was a man of the information age.

“ _And I think they surprised you, they shocked you, how good they were at it because no one ever wanted you more than they did. You think I can’t do that too? Because I’m too nice, right?_

He wasn’t a boy or a man but this constant fluid moving creature. Cool. Faith thought she could deal with that.

She did deal. Faith’s retort to all that had been more non-verbal than witty. It had involved some hair pulling, and sheet twisting. She had dug her heels into some soft part of him as her mouth stretched open.

Everyone knew these hacker guys were the new gods, but no one said they fucked like them and fucked you over like them. At least Stephen “The Destroyer” Holtz did. But, it was all-good. Power struggles were Faith’s business and she was a professional that knew how to comeback from a set back.

Faith was almost at the edge of the party and into the mansion when an old dude sprung up. He was drunk and tall. His body was imposing, but his smile impish.

“Hello, darlin’,” he said, “You don’t belong here, do you?”

“Sadly, I do,” Faith said.

“ _Sadly_?” the rugged old guy said, “That sounds like a story. I mean here you are at the pinnacle of the American dream and you’re sad you belong.”

Faith could tell right away this guy had spent his life being large and in change and now he was looking at the back nine. But, there was something about the way he talked and moved that let Faith know that life was all a big joke and he and Faith were in on it. Still, she had no time for any of this bullshit.

She had a “nice guy” to kill.

The geek fuck was expecting his little wifey and Faith couldn’t wait to see the look on his face when he realized she had flipped his sick little game around and…Wait, she actually did have time.

“C’mon,” the man stepped towards the bar, “Have a drink with a lonely old man and tell me. I can see you’re spoken for. I’ll be a perfect gentleman.”

Yeah, the minute a chick hit thirty, or looked it, guys older than dirt thought they could hit on you and still be “nice.” But, this dude wasn’t “nice.” He could see she was spoken for? Oh. She twisted the wedding band and the rock on her finger. Well, that decided it. The best way to win this game was to lean into it and come out on the other side stabbing.

“Don’t be,” Faith said, “I had enough nice guy bullshit. In fact, I’m gearing up to kill one.”

She walked over to the bar lit up with purple fairy lights. The bartender really looked familiar. He was a select piece of delicious beefcake with a shaved head poured into the black and white caterer’s uniform. Hey, she had just spent the past two weeks being objectified. She could at least have dirty thoughts.

“What’s your poison?” he asked.

“Since it’s on Cadabra Inc, Redbreast; neat,” Faith said.

The bartender was busy. All these people might be rich, but no one is immune to an open top shelf bar.

Faith remembered the Natalie personality “wasn’t much of a drinker.” She couldn’t wait to snap off all his nice guy parts.

“So, you want to kill the one called Holtz, right?” the old dude said.

“You know him?” Faith made her face go slack.

Shit. Because this shit wasn’t complicated enough.

“I know he’s not what he seems,” he said.

“Is anyone?” Faith said.

The orchestra played some 80s song as an instrumental Faith couldn’t name.

_So, you’re saying women hate nice guys because they really try and they like assholes because assholes are honest about being assholes?_

“Certainly not you,” he said.

Faith smiled when the whiskey finally arrived.

“Well,” Faith said, “We all have layers.”

“To layers,” she and the guy clinked glasses.

Girls liked assholes because you could be honest with them about what assholes men are and they didn’t get all butt-hurt or expect else from you other than honesty. That didn’t mean asshole guys wouldn’t try to get something from you, but if they didn’t it was cool. They knew they were assholes.

“Are you what you seem?” Faith asked.

“I don’t know,” he said, “How do I seem?”

“You don’t seem like you’re here to celebrate any of that.” Faith pointed to the huge screen that loomed over the whole party.

The screen proudly displayed the Cadabra Inc’s Logo, then swirled into announcing: 

_Cadabra Values Fair Trade_. _By 2023 all the companies we ship with will practice Fair Trade*._ The screen then broke down into pixels that built into Minne Maxwell-Brush and Hugh Brush posed with their biracial steely-eyed daughter. Her name was Talia. Faith had met her last week. She was somewhere brooding in the glass modern mansion with 6 bedroom 10 bathrooms. She had to be. She couldn’t leave.

“Should I celebrate fake bleeding hearts finally giving one band-aide to one open wound they made?”

“So, you’re good friends with Minnie, Hap, and Sy?” Faith chuckled.

“I know them,” he said, “Do you?”

“Oh,” Faith said, “we go way back to this past weekend.”

Minnie was the one who really wanted to clean up Cadabra Inc. Rumors were she was the one who really had her brother, Sy, kicked off the board. These days Minnie herself didn’t have a lot to say to the outside world. Her instagram was just filled with charities to give to and pics of her happy family.

That didn’t mean Minnie could be rid of Sy.

_“Honey,”_ she had drawled out to Faith, “ _Someone has to keep an eye on him_. _I was too young and dumb to do anything about him in the 90s. Wasn’t everyone? And yet they want to blame me. I was a 20-year-old daddy’s girl. Well, daddy’s dead now.”_

Faith had to admit Minnie was nothing like Faith expected.

The old guy pierced Faith with his round eyes few seconds. 

“You made that happen,” he said pointing to the screen now.

“Huh?”

“This whole fair trade thing,” he said, “It was you.”

It wasn’t. It had been The Destroyer/Holtz who had strong-armed them into it. He really _was_ a nice guy for greater good causes. Maybe Steven Holtz would be a perfectly nice guy if he were around nice women like Natalie. 

But, he had needed a working class hero Slayer/whore to make sure he hadn’t fucked it up. Faith wondered how many women, how many quiet goddesses, had lurked in backrooms and bedrooms holding it all together when dudes were supposedly in the room where the deal happened. She wondered how many of them were forced to become Natalies afterward.

“Do I look like I know about things like corporate deals and fair trade?”

Faith decided it was play dumb like she had in from of Sy Maxwell this past weekend.

“No,” the man said, “and that’s why it all worked, but you don’t have to chain yourself to Holtz or The Maxwells or anyone.”

“Who should I chain myself too?” Faith teased, “How do you know Holtz anyway?”

“I don’t really,” he said, “But, he’s different than the rest of the new ones, isn’t he?”

“Nah,” Faith said, “He’s the same old shitty Nice Guy in new clothes.”

She swallowed more whiskey. This time her ears popped and she heard the ocean waves.

“You don’t have to tell me,” the guy said, I’m much more interested in your story than I am his, if you kill him here tonight your whole story would just be about him and that would be a waste.”

“Why is that?” Faith asked.

“Because I sense whatever your story is it’s the new America,” he said, “I also think it’s not in your best interest to kill the kid. What’s your name, doll?”

“Number one I am not a doll,” Faith said, “Number two, my name is Faith, which should tell you my story and America really shouldn’t have anything to do with each other.”

His laugh was a deep below.

“I think I’m going to have to disagree with you there,” he said, “America just needs faith in the right thing and maybe that’s you.”

“Dude,” she said, “You really don’t have to lay the game on so thick. What’s your name?”

“Me?” his round eyes pierced her, “I’m just Mr. Wednesday. So, how did you end up here and how are you getting away?”

Faith smiled. Strategy had never been Faith’s strong suit, but she did always do a good exit. She needed to know what he knew about Holtz and what he meant when he said Faith couldn’t kill him. For that she’d tell him any story he wanted to hear.

*


End file.
